No matter how much I wanted to believe in the possibility of the item’s existence, I couldn’t.

  It’s not like I wasn’t used to the crazy things constantly thrown at my face—and trust me, the eyeballs were enough—but the possibility of an item, let alone a simple disc, capable of disobeying every w in the universe so easily was just too good to be true.

  Or bad, depending on how you looked at it.

  But more importantly, I was confident that if something that significant were to exist, I would’ve at least heard about it from the book. Yet no matter how much I racked my brain for mentions of a disc or something with simir powers, I couldn’t recall Jian ever mentioning it.

  ‘Or maybe I really did miss it within her constant fangirling.’ I smiled to myself, knowing that the comment would’ve earned me an earful from her.

  The disbelief must’ve been obvious on my face because I could see the initial excitement in my teacher’s eyes disappear, which did make me feel bad since I was the one who had suggested working together.

  “But of course, if you don’t believe me…”

  “I do, I do!” I quickly replied, hesitating for a bit before collecting myself. “I half-do, at least. I still think it’s a little unlikely to find something like that,” I watched her tilt her head in response as I continued. “But if it really exists, then I would definitely want to try it out.”

  “Is that so?” She unexpectedly let out a ugh. “Then how would you react if I told you that it does?”

  I looked back up at her, waiting patiently for her to eborate. “Uh, you mean we can find it?”

  She didn’t answer my question at first, instead staring at me for a little too long before she seemed to make up her mind. “The disc is divided into 5 pieces, and all 4 pieces are needed to surround the centre for it to work. If any of the components are missing, it’s completely useless—it might as well just be an old toy to toss around.”

  “And here’s another thing that’s interesting,” she slightly grinned, her eyes flickering over to make sure I was still paying attention. “One of the pieces serves a greater role than the best, and that’s the mini sphere at the center of the disc—it interconnects the 4 pieces.”

  My eyebrows knitted together as I tried to visualize the object in my head, but my dilemma was solved when she suddenly manifested a book from the tips of her fingers.

  “Oh shit,” startled, I jumped back when I saw the pages of the book flip on their own, as if possessed by a ghostly presence. However, the faint glowing light that emanated from the book told me it must’ve been magic. Her magic.

  A thought came to mind: Did she have an inventory?

  “Excuse my writing,” she said as she positioned the open page in front of my eyes for me to look. As I scanned over the unintelligible writing, I understood what she really wanted me to see: A diagram of the supposed disc. Just as I imagined, it looked like an ancient shield, with intricate details in the spaces between the rings just like the design of Achille’s shield.

  In fact, it felt like I had seen it elsewhere, but the thought quickly dissipated before I had a chance to ponder over it.

  Mrs. Juniper’s odd behaviour had rendered me speechless. In a matter of seconds, I went from trying to understand the bad handwriting to watching my teacher rip something out of her palm.

  “What the hell—Ms. Juniper?!”

  I stiffened as she turned her attention back to me, shooting me an apologetic look. “Ah, I forgot to warn you. Don’t look if you’re squeamish.”

  ‘Isn’t she being too casual about this?’ I thought to myself as I watched the prominent hole in her hand close on its own.

  “It’s fine,” I lied, and quickly diverted my eyes away from her palm, “But why did you…” my focus went to her other hand holding the object that she had extracted without shedding a drop of blood.

  ‘Yeah, this is freaky.’

  My eyes widened after I took a closer look at the object. It was a part of the disc!

  She grinned as she watched the realization dawn on me. “You recognize it, don’t you?”

  I slowly nodded, almost mesmerized by the intricacy of the glowing piece… if it weren’t for the fact that it was smaller than I had imagined in my head. I was expecting each of the 4 components to at least be roughly the size my hand. But now it looked like the full disc would be smaller than my palm!

  Still, the golden shine and speckled blue and green gems around the curve made up for it. Was it real gold?

  One thing was clear; it wasn’t an ordinary object. I now understood what she had meant when she said it stored energy. The thing felt like it was radiating an entire sor system!

  “So all 4 of them roughly look like that?” I asked, still staring at the ornament.

  “Yup, but be careful not to get too close. It might sting,” she let out a grin, but I couldn’t tell if she was joking or not.

  After all, I had seen her pull that thing out of her palm like it was splinter.

  I was prompted to ask her a question, but she beat me to it. “I’m not lying when I tell you this artifact is dangerous, Cindy. But that shouldn’t come off as a surprise given what I had told you so far,” she started, rotating the object in her hand. “So to keep it safe from harm, and protect everyone else, I have to store it. I have one more with me, and not even an energy-subduing container could hold it properly.” Again, just like the book from earlier, an illuminating cube appeared out of nowhere in her hands. As I took a step forward, it was indeed another fragment of the disc, contained inside a transparent container.

  I immediately understood the problem as soon as I gnced at the cube; the container was on the brink of falling apart like it was gss, decorated with numerous cracks that looked like it would break if I breathed too hard.

  “So let me ask you this before we proceed further: Are you sure you want to leave this pce?”

  I looked back up at her.

  “100 percent,” was my answer, probably the most confident I’d ever been. But there was still something about the whole thing that bothered me. “…There isn’t some sort of sacrifice thing associated with it, right? I mean, if we’re going to make a request that big, shouldn’t there be a price to pay?”

  “Oh Cindy, there’s always a price to pay,” she chuckled, going quiet for a bit. “Which is why I didn’t want to propose this solution to you in the first pce. I’m giving you the option to forget about the idea of leaving this world, and instead to go live your current life, which should be much more peaceful than back then—”

  I panicked, quickly interrupting her. “I’m prepared for the price. I don’t care, I still want to go home.”

  She raised an eyebrow. “You don’t even know what the price is.”

  “Then tell me,” I say, waiting for her reply. “At least let me know what I’m getting myself into.”

  As the seconds passed, I watched her hesitate. Her uneasiness was unfortunately infectious, because the longer she took to make up her mind, the more I worried that the price might be higher than my life.

  “…If you want, we can talk about it ter?” I offered.

  ‘Maybe I was rushing her into giving me all this information. And I still need to discuss some things with the eyeballs.’

  She slowly nodded. “That might be best. I wouldn’t want to overwhelm you after your first day out of jail,” she joked, before instinctively tucking her hands into the pockets of her coat, a cold breeze suddenly hitting us. She turned to face the ocean once again and then continued. “Although, we have a bigger problem than the so-called ‘price’ we’ve predicted.”

  As she started to walk towards the bridge, I followed, pushing my now cold hands into my pockets. “And that is?”

  “Since we’ll be collecting all the parts of the disc, that means we’ll have to store all of them. It wouldn’t have been a problem if I stored them inside my body, but what I’ve noticed is that you physically can’t—they seem to reject bodies that already possess one of the pieces.”

  “Wait, so you can’t store 2 in 1?” my eyebrows furrowed at the implication, also beginning to realize that it would be a bad idea keeping them in those containers she showed me earlier too.

  She sighed. “Unfortunately. I’m still looking into other solutions but it’s taking me a longer time, and just getting one of those cubes costed a fortune. I’d have to find an alternative storage system before we start looking for the 3 other pieces.”

  “Ah, yeah.” I nodded to myself before stopping in my tracks. Could I…?

  I felt her stop walking as well, peering behind her shoulder as she looked at me. “Cindy?”

  “This is just a suggestion, but… since you’re storing one of them already in your body, maybe I could also store one?’

  “Oh. Oh no, Cindy, you can’t,” I watched her hurriedly come to my side, as if making sure I didn’t get possessed. “Just because I have to do it, doesn’t mean that you do too.”

  “But you’re technically out of options, right? And I feel like we’d be wasting a lot of valuable time just looking for something to hold them when an easier and quicker solution exists!”

  She shook her head. “That’s true, but you don’t know what it could do to your body,” she paused, looking directly at me. “And you saw the way I took it out; even though it looks like it didn’t cause me any pain, it’s still uncomfortable, and even more unsettling when you can feel it inside you.”

  “Huh, how so? Like, it’s moving or something?” The image that formed in my head was definitely not helping.

  “Not exactly, but it does feel that way at times, yes,” she looked like she wanted to say something else, but held back. She then turned away and began walking again, not expecting me to protest.

  I pursed my lips, thinking about it as I followed her. “Then what’s the next course of action?”

  “Pursuing.” I raised an eyebrow. “A container, obviously. Although it’s proving hard to acquire,” she mumbled.

  “And how long will that take...?” I asked, hoping it was a small number. I can wait a few weeks—

  “A year, if we’re lucky.”

  I almost tripped, stumbling forward.

  “A year?!” I excimed, regaining my bance before catching up to her. “No way, there’s no way... Please, tell me you’re joking.”

  The silence confirmed the dread that began to cloud my mind.

  Can I even do anything about that?

  ‘I can’t wait a year. A year to find and commission the maker for durable containers, a year to find the actual discs, a year to probably realize that you need some random ass key to activate it—'

  There’s no way I can spend that much time here, especially when it seems highly unlikely that I’ll wake up one day and realize it was all just a dream.

  With my mind made up, I call out. “I’ll do it!” Letting out a shaky sigh, I continued. “I’ll handle one of the pieces, I can keep it in me, at least until we find something better. And so,” I then pause, remembering something. “This guy—I mean, me—has funds saved up so I can get a hold of those if we run into issues with money. Yeah?”

  I didn’t see her face, but I assumed she was displeased about me bringing up the idea again. However, I didn’t falter.

  “Cindy, I told you—”

  “I approached you about this, remember?” I interrupted her, “If anything, I should be prepared to handle the consequences of my wish.” I swallowed hard as I saw her turn around, not sure if the anxiety came from the risk of potentially harming myself because of my thoughtless actions, or the possibility of her adamantly refusing.

  There was that same look on Mrs. Juniper’s face: the one I couldn’t decipher. The sound of the waves cshing against the sudden gust of wind seemed to break her out of her trance, and she blinked before a small smile appeared on her face.

  “You can be reckless Cindy,” she started, walking towards me. “But I’ll allow it this time.”

  She stopped right in front of me, her eyes flickering with amusement. “You know, I’m actually surprised. You were never this passionate in my English css.”

  ***

  Detecter